


Magic Man

by romanticalgirl



Category: Brothers & Sisters
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-19
Updated: 2013-04-19
Packaged: 2017-12-08 22:13:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/766620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/romanticalgirl/pseuds/romanticalgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Try to understand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Magic Man

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [](http://inlovewithnight.livejournal.com/profile)[**inlovewithnight**](http://inlovewithnight.livejournal.com/) for the beta. Written for her [Songfic Flashfic Challenge #2](http://inlovewithnight.livejournal.com/1095292.html)
> 
> Originally posted 11-15-07

Saul’s a master of misdirection. He’s spent his whole life reflecting and deflecting other people’s lives so they won’t see that his own is filled with smoke and mirrors, nothing of substance. He exists on the periphery as business partner and brother and uncle that no one thinks to look and see if there’s really a man standing behind the curtain or if it’s just another trick he’s got up his sleeve.

The thing about his life is that it’s built on lies, half-truths that he’s managed to make seem real enough that he even believes them. But seeing Milo again brings it all back, shines a light on the lies and dissolves them into shadows so all he can see is the truth.

He and Milo were lovers.

And he’s spent the past 40 years of his life in love with his sister’s husband.

**

Those are the things that he has to keep hidden. The things that keep him separate from his family. He lives on the periphery of their lives acting the part of wisdom and sage advice, keeping distant whenever things are too hard. He can handle politics and religion, warring with the different factions with the rest and the best of them, but this is the one area of his life he keeps shielded from view.

When Kevin came out, he’d withdrawn. He’d refused to be part of the discussions, refused to set foot in the house. William had taken it as solidarity and Nora had taken it as compassion, believing that Saul didn’t want to try to step in as father to Kevin and make the rift between William and Kevin even wider. The truth was more and less than that at once – fear and sorrow that he couldn’t contain, couldn’t hide.

William would start to talk about it, and Saul would remain stoic and silent, his expression blank and unrevealing. Nora would speak to him on the phone and he’d express sympathy and understanding, speaking platitudes like magic words, hoping they’d hold things together long enough, tight enough to keep everything from falling apart.

He wasn’t completely lucky. Whatever bond had been between himself and Kevin shattered for a long time. He’d been like a father to him, taking pity on his more intellectual pursuits and leaving William to handle Tommy and Justin as they sought out more physical activities. Saul was Kevin’s confidante and friend, even beyond being his uncle. But when Kitty started the whispers that became a roar, Saul held himself apart. He didn’t take Kevin’s calls, let messages linger unheard on his answering machine.

And every day he sat in William’s office, watching him promise Nora everything and then break it down so that she only saw the part of the picture he wanted her to see and he gave everything else to Holly. William was an illusionist as well, focusing the eye where he wanted you to see instead of on the sleight of hand. Saul watched it all, saw the faults, saw the man behind the curtain and it never once changed how he felt.

And now the truth’s in Nora’s hands. He knows it will balance delicately until it falls and falls apart, secrets spilled out into the air. He knows there will be the betrayed looks from everyone, the unwillingness to believe that someone else they love could have lied to them, was lying to them. They’ll know and they’ll forgive, but it won’t matter. It doesn’t matter that they might understand.

It only matters that there’s nothing he can do about it, that he’s betrayed the one woman he’s loved his entire life by loving the same man she did. They’ll be questions and recriminations about living a lie, about courting Holly when it would hurt the most when she’s not even what he wants, but all he can say is that he needed a connection to William just as much as Holly did. That he could only mourn his brother-in-law when he wanted to mourn much more.

And then there will be Kevin.

Saul expects the grandiose ‘I told you so’, and Kevin’s own withdrawal. Whatever Saul gave him will be visited back; Kevin’s ability to hold a grudge on of his best-known attributes. He’ll look at Saul like he’s learned all his tricks and knows now that everything he thought was magic was something less, was just life, was just lies.

It’s a fact of life that the rest of them learned with William, that Kevin hasn’t quite learned yet. It’s the secret that won’t quite die. The questions will follow from all of them – the hows and whys and wherefores – and every motive will be called into question, every decision in doubt. His credibility as an entity will falter and possibly fail, because everything will be tainted with what he’s done and felt. What he did for William, not what he did for the family or for Ojai.

Life distills down to who you love and how you love them, and for committing the sin of loving their father, Saul’s certain that whatever loyalty and love he had are going to fall away and maybe, hopefully, eventually come back together.

It’s easy to tell them that you don’t choose who you love, that you don’t have a chance always to walk away. William couldn’t do it, and neither can Saul, but he’s paid the price in sacrificing his life and his happiness to be around William, to pretend that even without reciprocation, he had a family with him, in him.

**

He mourned in private eventually. Once the money was found and all his feelings were _his_ again, were about William and not what he’d done and what he’d done to all of them, he sat in his apartment and stared at nothing, drinking wine until his stomach revolted.

Admitting this – if he does, if he can – will be like losing him again, acknowledging everything meaning letting everything go again. Admitting it means moving on in the life that he – in those few words to Nora – has chosen. It means admitting he lied. It means the kind of betrayal you can’t alleviate with a well-placed joke or another bottle of wine. It potentially means losing everything in the world he holds dear.

It also means coming alive again, now, when he thought he’d never live.  



End file.
